Abstract

Dispersive behaviour of soil clays has been explained by soil scientists using hypotheses involving various electrical diffuse double layer forces generated between colloidal clay particles suspended in water (e.g. Quirk, 2001). In natural soils, however, clay particles in soil aggregates exist as complex heterogeneous intergrowths of different clay structures intimately associated with silt, sand and biopolymers, and are confined, without being in colloidal suspension in water.